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Thursday, 4 November 2010

More from last night, FIFA show how they view corruption

Yesterday's post-match rant was the 100th blog post on this site. It's a shame I couldn't have been celebrating the century with three points and the group win in the bag. I don't doubt that we will still win the group, though another defeat away at Braga in three weeks time and we could be looking rather nervously over our shoulders. It didn't need to be like this. ArseneWenger has basically admitted that the players didn't put in enough effort saying that they "lost urgency and concentration." He seemed most displeased after the game, and rightly so. As I said last night, we lose too many games due to a lack of effort, and the Manager must knock this out of the players. There is no room for complacency at the top level, or you get your arses kicked by the likes of West Brom, or Shakhtar Donetsk. We saw too much of it last season, especially towards the end. Arsene also said that we showed a "lack of maturity." I can't accept this one. Last week, after winning at Man City, Wenger told us how the win was a sign of their "maturity." So which is it Arsene?Craig Eastmond has taken some stick on some of the sites today, but it's not his fault. The lad was out of his depth last night, as he was at Newcastle last week, and at Man City last season in the Carling Cup. The Manager is the one to blame, as he is the one who picked the boy to play. I don't think Eastmond is ever likely to be a player good enough for Arsenal's midfield. He doesn't have pace, he isn't powerful, and he's not a great passer of the ball. I'm at a bit of a loss as to what he's got to warrant a place in the line-up ahead of Henri Lansbury. But, as I say, it's not the lad's fault he was playing.I've also seen people getting at Johan Djourou, but I can't understand that at all. Djourou has looked well behind his centre-back colleagues so far this season, but last night I felt he was Arsenal's best player. It seems that the Swiss is moving in to boo-boy territory with certain sections of Arsenal supporters. If that's the case then I wonder how Clichy continues to dodge the bullets. The sooner Kieran Gibbs can show an ability to stay fit for more than a week or two the better it will be for Arsenal.Moving on from that there was a piece on the BBC website that caught my eye today with regards to the 2018 World Cup bid. You can read the piece in full at the following link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/9157121.stmIt seems that the FA are worried that the newspaper allegations against FIFA Committee Members may have damaged their chances of hosting the World Cup. They are now planning some kind of charm offensive to bring FIFA back on side with the English bid. It is no secret that FIFA, and certain senior figures, have long been accused of being a little less than honest in their dealings. The comments from SeppBlatter (what a leech this man is) in the article seem to sum up FIFA's attitude to corruption - he says: "One can ask whether such an action is appropriate, trying to set traps for people. It is a deeply rooted problem [with the English media]."Who is benefiting from this situation and who is being harmed, we are asking ourselves why did it happen and why did it happen specifically by English journalists? We are looking at that." How can it be that the President of FIFA is more disgusted with the media for catching people out for corruption than he is with dealing with those who would abuse their power in football? The fact is that, if the officials were not bent, there would be no trap to set. If England do not get given the World Cup because the media have rooted out corrupt officials then it says more about the state of the World game than it does about British newspapers. To be quite frank, if this is FIFA's attitude, then we are far better off without the World Cup in this country. After all, how much of the profit that should be going to the grass-roots of the English game would be syphoned off by Blatter and his cronies? I would love to have the World Cup in this country, but not if it means scumbags like these making more money out of the likes of us fans.Remember you can follow the blog on Twitter (@ARSENALDvbrisG) and on Facebook (It's MY Arsenal Opinion).